Taiwan Is Qualified for Membership of The International Community

China chose to issue this white paper now for the purpose of exerting pressure on other countries while nipping Taiwan's effort to expand foreign relation in the bud. We are protesting China's hostile move by asserting the point that Taiwan is a sovereign country. With full international personality, Taiwan has every right to participate in any international activity or organization.

As far as the United Nations Resolution 2758 of 1971 is concerned, we believe that it merely assures the Chinese Communist regime's legitimacy of representing China. Its denouncement of the Chiang regime's claim cannot be equated with a rejection of Taiwan's status as an independent country. It does not grant China the right to claim Taiwan as a part of its territory in any sense. In fact, in the debate regarding Chinese representation, there was a broad consensus that:

1. the PRC be admitted to UN as China;
2. Taiwan was not a province of the PRC;
3. the future of Taiwan be decided by Taiwanese according to the principles of UN Charter and self-determination;

Compared with the one hundred and eighty-four members of the UN, Taiwan ranks medium in population and territory; it is in the upper tier in terms of culture and economy. Taiwan's trading volume ranks fourteenth; the ranking of our GDP is twentieth while that of GNP per capita is twenty-fifth in the world. Taiwan's foreign reserves come closely after Japan's and Germany's while it has become the seventh biggest country in foreign investment. Taiwan has provided technical assistance, human resources and monetary aid to help many developing and under-developed countries.

Article Four of the UN Charter states that members can be admitted if they be peace-loving states that accept the obligations contained in the Charter and be able and willing to carry out these obligations. Taiwan is well-qualified for UN membership under this condition. Its request to enter the UN should therefore be taken seriously.

It should be clarified that the KMT's proposition of "parallel representation of a divided nation" is nothing more than a game of words. The truth is, the KMT has no intention of becoming a member of the UN. This can be detected from Lee Teng-hui's remark that, "The effort to get into the UN should not be used by the DPP as a scheme for Taiwan's independence." The Taiwanese desire formal admission to membership of the UN rather than the position of an observer. Lee's approach, willing and bound to settle for less due to his refusal to use the name "Taiwan" cannot be accepted by the Taiwanese.

We demand that China stop interfering with Taiwan's international relations. It is about time that China acknowledge Taiwan's sovereignty and respect the will of the Taiwanese. We also call on the international community to recognize the right of the Taiwanese people to found an independent country.